How to Attract More Facebook Fans (Without Wasting Your Time!)

When I started thinking about this blog post, my goal was to give you 21 tips and strategies to attract more fans on Facebook. And as I started working on those tips, I realized that I hardly used any of them.

I wasn’t using them not because they didn’t work, but because there’s no need to do 21 things to attract more fans on Facebook. That would be a complete waste of time, not to mention that there are more important online marketing strategies to focus on other than getting more fans on Facebook. Fans are important, but engagement and list building on Facebook are so much more valuable. (You’ll hear more about those two topics from me in the very near future!)

Let me back up for a minute. . . I’ve been teaching online marketing strategies, specifically Facebook marketing, for almost five years now and just over the past year I’ve changed the way I teach. In the beginning I would teach what I called “everything you might want to know about Facebook,” and by that I mean that I would teach you strategies that worked because I’ve tested them myself, but not necessarily strategies that I use daily to succeed in my business.

In the past I felt that I had to make sure you were “well-informed.” However, I should have realized that as a busy business owner, you don’t have time to read a bunch of info that is “good to know” but that is more than what you need in order to be successful. My apologies. It won’t happen again. Instead I am now committed to giving you information that will ensure you are “well-equipped” to use Facebook as a powerful tool that will help you start meaningful conversations with your customers and potential customers, build your email list and attract new customers. Simple as that.

Let’s dive in . . . First let’s start out with the WHY. Why do you want to attract more fans on Facebook? There are three main reasons, and ALL of them are tied to making a bigger impact in your business and revenue.

Quality Fans = Real Relationships

When you have a large, quality fan base on Facebook AND you combine that with strategies to start meaningful conversations that your fans care about, you can easily become your fans go-to-source in your niche for A LOT OF PEOPLE. These fans will learn to trust you and when the time is right, want to do business with you. It’s easier to turn a fan into a lead when they truly trust and like you.

Quality Fans = Lucrative Leads

When you have a large Facebook fan base, you can more easily build your email list with quality subscribers who are eager to hear from you on a consistent basis. The energy of your business is directly tied to the strength of your email list and using Facebook to build your email list with your ideal audience is a very smart strategy. (Facebook is the #1 resource I use for list building – click here to get instant access to a free training where I show you how I do it.)

Quality Fans = Money Saving Strategies

This last one will give you a surefire competitive edge, so lean in a little close so I can whisper it. (I don’t want your competition to hear!) When you grow a solid fan base on Facebook, you can then create Facebook ads that will only be seen by your existing fan base. When you run “fan-only” campaigns, you will pay MUCH less per click than the ads where you target non-fans. I am talking hundreds if not thousands of dollars in savings. (Side note: If you don’t yet use Facebook ads to build your email list and drive more profits, you are 100% missing out on the best opportunity online today. I mean it. Check out my free webinar all about Facebook ads here.)

Tried and True Fan Growth Strategies

#1: Link Your Facebook Page to Your Profile You can add a link from your profile to your Facebook Page, by doing the following steps:

Under “Work and Education,” in the field that says, “Where have you worked?” type in the name of your Facebook Page.

As you type in the name of your page, you’ll likely see several pages that will appear beneath the field. Click on your page to select it.

Add in your position, description, etc.

Leave the box, “I currently work here” checked and click on “add job.”

#2: Add a Facebook Like Box to Your Website. Adding a Facebook Like box to your website is a great way to grow your fan base. This works especially well because the people on your website are warm leads and likely to be interested in the content you post on your Facebook Page. In addition to that, it keeps visitors on your website (the Facebook Like icon takes them away from your site). I also like to add this plugin to my thank you pages. Click here to grab embed code for your Facebook Like Box. If that seems complicated, you can do a Google search for a Facebook Like Box plugin for your website.

#3: Brand Your Page There’s nothing worse than a Page that has no Timeline cover photo or has one that’s poorly designed. If I came to your Page right now and spent five seconds on it, would I instantly know what your business is about? That’s the goal of your Timeline cover photo – it’s an introduction, a handshake. Make it count.

#4: Post relevant, entertaining and meaningful content two to five times each day and get involved in the conversations on your Page. If you want a great lesson on what and how to post on your Facebook Page, check out the Facebook chapter in Gary Vaynerchuk’s book, Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook. It will change the way you look at your content on Facebook. The goal with your content is to ignite actions in the form of likes, comments and shares – because these three actions create stories on Facebook and therefore create opportunities for your posts to see a greater reach. A greater reach means you increase your changes of organically attracting new fans.

Consider These “Going The Extra Mile” Strategies

Link to Your Facebook Page Consider linking to your Facebook Page in a blog article or embed a status update inside your post. When you find relevant, natural ways to include your Facebook Page into a conversation, you are more likely to attract the right kind of audience for your business.

Get active outside of Facebook It used to be that when people wanted to find out more about you and your business, they would Google you. These days, they Google you AND search for your inside of Facebook. It’s become the norm. That’s why what you do outside of Facebook matters to your fan grown inside of Facebook. When carried out strategically, your activities outside of Facebook will drive traffic to your Page and grow your fan base. Be seen where it really matters. Here are a few suggestions:

Participate in webinars and teleseminars

Get interviewed to gain exposure to a new audience

Participate in online and offline training courses (either create them yourself or be a guest)

Blog more often

Guest blog on popular sites

Create more videos

Use Sponsored Like Ads Another surefire way to attract quality fans is to actually go out and find them inside of Facebook. What I mean by that is to run a Facebook ad campaign that will target your perfect ideal audience on Facebook. Sponsored Like ads do just that. I talk all about “Like ads” in my free webinar, Facebook Ads that Convert. Check out the details here.

Avoid These Strategies

Don’t buy fans. Don’t ever spend a dime on buying fans. What will happen is that you will get a bunch of fans from far off countries that will never like, comment or share any of your posts. And when that happens, your engagement score on Facebook will plummet and it will be extremely hard to reverse the damage.

Don’t create a bunch of Facebook Pages. The more Pages you have, the more stress you will cause yourself and your team. Less is more here.

Don’t focus too much on trying to get more fans. Once you hit 1,000 fans, your fan growth will start to happen more organically, especially if you do the strategies I’ve mentioned above! So don’t stress yourself out with your fan attraction efforts.

Remember this. Your number of fans on Facebook means nothing if you are not attracting QUALITY fans that are genuinely engaged in your content, interested in what you are about and paying attention to what you have to say. How do you do that? Be human. I know you’ve heard this before, but are you really doing it?

Here’s a quick test:

Take a look at your last 10 Facebook posts. Ask yourself:
1) Would I engage with that post if I saw it in my news feed?
2) Did I ask for or encourage action (like, share, comment)?
3) If there is a photo, would you want to share it if you saw it in your News Feed?
4) Does this post truly add value to my audience?
5) Does this post educate, entertain or empower?

Now it’s your turn! What’s been the #1 more effective way you’ve attracted fans? Have you used any of the strategies above? If not, what’s one thing you can take action on in the next week?

My business page is new due to a business model transition. I found my prior page lacking because the fans were solely friends and family who were cheerleaders and not prospects for my virtual business support business. My business has always been word of mouth and now want to expand nationally. I’m going to try this approach. And try tightening up my niche. Thank you! https://www.facebook.com/Taskittous

Angela Westgarth

For me a simple task of inviting my friends from my personal page to like my business page – for me they’re my perfect audience anyway as I am an estate agent. They will all have houses to sell at some point so great if I can interact with them in a business sense too!

Gareth Baker

Hi Amy, very useful info. I notice you mention that posts should (among other things) ideally entertain, well I have just launched http://www.social-media-posting.com where I will post a “pic of the day” on social media pages every day for 30 days for $5 and I was wondering if you could either use or help me promote it?

Sorry if this is a bit spammy but I just started this up and I don’t really have a marketing budget!

Ronn Jerard Writes

Amy, I recently tried to follow your instructions, but I didn’t not get the results as outlined in this article. Have things chaged at Facebook since the article was originally published?

http://leisuresuitlarry.weebly.com/ Nick Herc

Getting facebook fans is not so hard. The harder part is keeping your page viral and by that I mean likes, shares. You can have 10k fans, it doesn’t do you and good if the page is dead. Facebook has new algorithm that changed the rules. Back in the days, all who liked your page, saw your post, now that’s gone. But getting fans, that’s easy. I can get anyone easily 500 fans in 24-48 days, heck, even more, it depends of the nature of your page. My record was 2835 fans in one day, 500 the next and I’m talking niche oriented fans, that are more than willing to engage on your page.

Hi, This is a great article, I have been in business since February 2014, but my only mistake was paying Facebook to promote my page. I got 5k likes in 2 weeks but the people who liked my Facebook are not engaging as much as I like them to. I specialise in Luxury Holidays, but my fans are young and students90% between 18-24 ! if you can suggest any more ideas please let me know.. I have already spent money in newspapers, radio and Facebook and not getting the right results.
perhaps, you can have a look at my page and let me know if I need to change anything :(

Loved this post! You inspired me to evaluate and change the way I’ve been posting. Too boring! I realize now I need to kick my followers into high gear. :=)

Todd Haiman

Hi Amy-
Been listening to your and Michael Stelzner’s podcasts. Both of you have such lovely ways of communicating and sharing knowledge. Really enjoyable to listen to. I’m excited to see how it will grow my fb page http://www.facebook.com/toddhaimanlandscape. Thanks so much! Happy holidays!

lisa

Hi do you have any tips on how to attract customers to my window cleaning Facebook page please? We have 160 likes and I use selling sites on Facebook to advertise the business but I am unsure how to engage with our fans or new customers , apart from making statuses asking people to like and share and what window cleaning services we offer and before and after pictures of the windows/gutters etc . I have also tried an offer for customers that reccomend new customers which didn’t really work. I’m not sure its appropriate to write jokes etc on a window cleaning business page . Any advice would be greatly accepted , thank you

http://mhskp786.blogspot.com/ Muhammad Hussain

Thank You very Much Dear For Sharing This Post .It Is Really Helpful For me

Andy

Continue as planned! There will be fluctuations as in any marketing strategy.
I use “schedule posts” a lot, for promotions/ offers… most of em aren’t used, for instance 1 month has 4 weeks, of which i have 1 week with different offers (so it can be for a great nr of clients, if they all order whitin that week, but i usually get about 10-20 orders and the stock i make for em is more like 50-60) so, i reschedule that post for next month with the same offer (change the date/ text/ photo) and that way i don’t invest every month on same amount if they don’t sell. Just be careful to plan ahead, depending on service or item you are selling… make sure you got enough, nobody wants to get an offer and find out you’re out of stock (this will attract bad reviews). Other than that, don’t worry about the fluctuations.

vicky

The link to the ‘what to say on Facebook’ is not working?

oshani

Hi Amy ! Thanks a lot for this great article. I just started my new
face book page for a designer wear business and looking forward to make
use of all these tips you gave. My pagehttps://www.facebook.com/RediUAE?ref=hl is already increasing its fan
base thanks to you !

http://adventapps.com/ Adventapps

I newly created a facebook page facebook.com/adventapps and I shared the page to my friends. I got only very few likes so far. I started joining group of smiliar interests. Do you think a post about my page there in those groups can get me more fans?

A very good article and it helped me alot but at first when my fan page was newly created, i found it difficult to get the first fans to like it. Later on, i realize there are experts who provide cheap likes for starter pages. I purchased 1000 likes for $1 then after following you post, it was awesome and the fans keep coming. You can get some cheap likes here http://seovirals.com/category/facebook-likes-shares

Hi Amy! I just found you and sooo happy I did! I can’t wait to read more of your articles. I do have a quick question – is it better to have your fan page attached to your timeline or all together separate? The reason I ask – Is because I’m having trouble with people wanting to be my friends on my personal timeline vs. liking my biz page. Thoughts or do you have an article I should read?

NABIL HERZI

Hi Amy,
Thank you for your tips, I tried to click on the link regarding Quality Fans = Lucrative Leads but didn’t work!
can you please help out

Hello Amy, I have a problem boosting my posts or advertising on Facebook because they treat my page as an online dating advertisement ,though it is not. My project is related to building a future dating site or a site where people can explore their compatibility by using survey-matching approach, but people are NOT meeting each other on my site. I sent a message to Facebook trying to explain all of it in detail but they still didn’t approve my ad. Is there any way I can overcome this? Thank you for your advice! Tatiana

Michelle Grigsby

Another great way to get more facebook fans is to leave valuable content in comments and link it to your fan page where it asks you to provide your website…. I also search for blog posts that are using the Facebook Comments plugin… :)

About Amy

Amy is a social media strategist and co-author of Facebook Marketing All-In-One for Dummies. She helps entrepreneurs across industries establish strategies to maximize the power of social media and increase the success of their online marketing efforts.